


guts and glory

by macha



Series: Georgia on My Mind [26]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-22
Updated: 2007-04-22
Packaged: 2017-10-18 11:51:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/188622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macha/pseuds/macha





	guts and glory

###  _B05.10.01 DragonHorde Wars: in the hunt, we are hunter._

and the name of the tale is:

### Guts and Glory

Um, Dru? We were supposed to ask some questions.

Hmm, so we were.

They don't look too talkative anymore.

Bit of a jumble.

I don't suppose they happened to maybe say something useful inside your head, when they were still alive?

Well, no, the music I was hearing was more - martial.

Still, it took weeks to track them down. And sadly, not like we've got any other leads.

This one's not quite dead yet. I can hear him not breathing. Want to play with him awhile?

Do you want to play?

Always.

I get that. But I'm thinking, just for that reason, might be a bad idea. You know?

Don't you ever want to?

Sometimes. Get that rush going, when I hit the kill zone, and it's like I'm just gone. And I like that feeling. B, she can stop on a dime.

Darla used to call it touching god, that feeling. But she was always practical, just the same. I really thought the two of you would be more alike.

Likewise. Sometimes it seems like Buffy spends her whole life trying to put things back together. While you and I spend ours taking things apart.

You mean we're unravelling every night what she does all day?

Yeah. Or at least, we certainly used to.

Sometimes I miss those days myself.

Do you? I'm almost afraid to ask how much.

Don't worry, I'm not going to go back. Not unless Angel comes, at least. I can never see past him to know. But other than that I can keep a bargain, even if it's for eternity.

Maybe we both need some big honking signs so we can tell good from bad. Especially in the field. And sometimes there isn't any way to sort it out, cause it's all mixed up together.

Like in us.

It's true.

But I don't think it feels any different from before, the things we do now. Most of the time.

Well, on the bright side, I guess, what we do gives her some choices. And we're all on the same side, if not always on the same page. But look at the mess we made today.

Poor Penelope. I can't tell what's right from the way I feel. I'll never be good again, not the way I was once, in the beginning.

I'm not sure I was ever innocent. Couldn't afford to be, where I came from. What do you go from, then, when you're making choices?

Darla and Spike and my baby brother. Family. It's strange, a bit, to think that they're not evil any more, but they don't seem much different to me. It's rare, you know, for us ever to make families. To want them. But it doesn't feel inside like I've changed at all. It's just that everyone's here, except Angel, and he's going to come.

He is?

He is. And I've got a tower, and a ship, and a purpose of my own. I make my own bargains. Everyone is kind. It just feels like home. I remember home.

Funny, I spent a whole lot of years trying to forget. What should we do now, you think?

You search the bodies, see if there's anything at all we can use.

What about you?

I get to be the oracle. I'll read the entrails, see what they're pointing to, where we should head for next.

Okay, I'm liking that division of duties.

Do you get squeamish, then, when you're not in the moment any more?

No way. Better their guts than mine.

I do enjoy the work.

Which is why you're an excellent fortune teller, where I can shine more as the working stiff. Not that I'm looking to get stiffer anytime soon. Ever been gutted?

When I woke up in the coffin I was empty.

I've always wondered how that embalming thing worked out.

They just grow back.

Nice feature. I've been gutted, in battle. Hurts like a bitch and all you can think about is pushing them back in. Buffy's done that for me. Come to think of it, she's done it for me both ways: taken them out or pushed them back in, depending. Whole story of our life together, back in the day.

She's always been a wonder. And no amount of scrying ever sees her clear.

You got that right.

Angelus used to think up such interesting things to do with entrails, you can't imagine. In England they used to wind them up for everyone to see. So very wasteful, when you think how much they have to say. In this case, hmm, we want to head in that direction, and right now.

Okay, moving out. What they were carrying told a few tales too.

But not in such a lovely red as mine, I'd wager.

Did you drink? I can smell blood everywhere. Must be hard for you.

I still have my pleasures. But it's just a delicacy now, I'm never really hungry. It will keep. There's so much blood on my hands already, just a bit more won't make much difference.

Long as you don't start looking at my neck. Got a few things in life I'd still like to try.

We can be comrades.

I guess we're both crusaders in a holy war, aren't we?

Are these the infidels? They would have fared worse than we gave them on those battlefields.

I guess so. Luck of the draw we came to call. But it's funny to think that no matter how many eyes or limbs they've got, or what they breathe, or what color blood they spill,...

Mmm, yummy.

...they're just like us, with hopes and dreams. In there pitching, though in this case trying and failing.

They failed pretty quick this morning. It was a bit disappointing.

They just picked the wrong side this time.

Must be hard to act at all, thinking like that.

Well, truth to tell, thinking like that's the thing that makes Buffy Buffy.

Poor Buffy.

Me, I try to keep my world a lot more simple. But yeah, sometimes she has trouble living with it too. Anyway here we are, a long long way from home, doing the dirty work not just for fun but in the interest of galactic saveage.

On the side of good, you mean.

Sometimes in spite of ourselves.

You think it's about salvation.

You and me, we're the only Catholic schoolgirls on this ship, Dru, and that's a fact. All shiny here in our patent leather shoes. How would she call it, the girl you used to be?

I think my parish priest would never have given me absolution.

No kidding. And I bet that's maybe true even before you were ever turned, and I was called. But don't you think, some way, the joke's on them?

I think maybe the Father never saw an angel.

Well, maybe he'd get as close as some altar boy, at least in Boston. See, it wasn't so frigging simple even when we were for really young and innocent.

I remember.

Yet now they call you an angel.

I knew an Angel once. But he wasn't nearly as much fun as Angelus could be.

But this part's fun, right?

Ready and willing.

You take the left lot, I'll take the right. Let's try to leave one or two alive this time.

Alright. At least for a little while. Darla says there are two kinds of angels.

Oh yeah?

Angels of mercy, and angels of judgment.

Tell it, sister. Okay, let's give em hell.


End file.
